The Only Constant in Life is Construction (and That’s a Problem)

Image via Unsplash.

A couple of weeks ago, I was driving west on I-66 in Northern Virginia out to Front Royal. For as long as I’ve lived in Virginia, which is coming up on four years, I-66 has been under construction for a major 22.5-mile widening project from Arlington to Gainesville, operated jointly by the Commonwealth of Virginia and a private company.

I know a lot of people will take highway widening over new housing, unfortunately, but this got me thinking: How much of what we call “NIMBYism” (“Not in My Backyard”) is a reaction to the assumption or perception that proposed projects simply never get finished? They just seem to go on for years and years, such that construction noise, road closures, and traffic disruption become a permanent part of the area. If that’s what development means, it kind of makes sense to just want things to stay the way they are. When you give people either stagnation and sameness on the one hand, or constant disruption on the other, many will pick stagnation and sameness.

And, of course, it’s not just public works projects, though they do tend to drag on (we’ll see if I-66 is done before the first trains run along Virginia’s delay-plagued Silver Line Metro extension). Lots of work on buildings and private developments, like the Reston Station or Halley Rise projects where I live in Reston, just goes on forever. This news story on Halley Rise, a mixed-use project not far from the Reston Town Center, is instructive:

The 36-acre redevelopment project is set to open the first phase of its residential units in early 2022, and a Wegmans grocery store is expected to open before the end of 2022. Delivery of the first phase of offices for the project is expected in mid-2023, to align with market demand.

The mixed-use district in Reston is expected to be complete by 2026.

2026! Lots of people who’ve seen this project in progress the whole time they’ve lived in Reston will not even live there anymore by the time it’s finished. I’m not sure where this terminology of “phases” came from—did they take it from Marvel, or did Marvel take it from the construction industry?—but it’s a little dismaying to me that these projects aren’t simply done on a timescale that feels realistic or even reasonable. Forget human-scale; how about human timescale? I generally support this growth, especially around transit, but it is a little disorienting, in a way, to never have a moment when it feels like your whole town can just take a breath.

Beltway Plaza Mall. Image via Route 1 Reporter.

Or take a look at this news story, on a proposed redevelopment project for Beltway Plaza, a fairly successful 1960s one-story indoor mall in Greenbelt, Maryland:

The next step on the multi-phase redevelopment plans for Beltway Plaza is underway. Bethesda-based mall owner Quantum Cos. is gathering feedback on a still-in-the-works detailed site plan for [the] first phase of the planned six-phase redevelopment.

It’s not so much about building new stuff, or even your town undergoing a lot of change. It’s the feeling of constant change and disruption forever.

Contrast this with Charles Marohn’s proposal for a zoning regime, which I like to refer to as (and I might be borrowing this from one of his talks) to “a little bit in everyone’s backyard.” Our neighborhoods need to be flexible and be allowed to change. Historically, they have! But change happened on a smaller and more granular scale. These massive projects that take almost a decade, occupy the land area of several urban blocks, and are headed by a single developer are not only disruptive; they don’t have the same financial and productive flexibility as smaller and more organic growth. In other words, ideally we should have more flexibility and change, but at a smaller and more incremental scale. When the scale is small, you can have incremental change all the time without it feeling like constant change. That’s key.

Incrementalism is key for a Strong Town.

Learn more about incremental development at the Action Lab!

It must be acknowledged that many folks who do this work become jaded and frustrated, because they’ve seen that no matter what arguments or concessions they make, there’s a certain “professional NIMBY” lobby that remains implacable. That can harden urbanists against taking seriously, or having sympathy for, any objections to new development or appeals to neighborhood stability.

But—admittedly as a non-planner—I try to take such objections seriously. I do that because I understand and sometimes agree with them. I also do it because I often don’t agree with them. I think the onus should be on those who oppose development to make their case, and therefore I want to hear that case, such as it is. One can see an argument that either opposing or embracing change in your daily surroundings is the “natural” position to take, in terms of human temperaments and preferences. It’s complicated.

So when people say they’d like new construction if it were “beautiful,” or if it didn’t take so long, or if it was at a smaller and less disruptive scale, I think at least some of them really mean it. It’s a mistake to act as though everyone who makes these arguments or raises these questions does so in bad faith. Those “professional NIMBYs” do. But lots of people don’t. They might be latent urbanists, or latent advocates for new businesses and new neighbors—or latent Strong Towns members. They’re also people who, rather understandably, say no to eternal megaprojects. Maybe they’re even right.

---

---

Addison Del Mastro writes on urbanism and cultural history. He tweets at @ad_mastro and writes daily at Substack.